Princess Beatrice and Edoardo Mapelli Mozzi engagement: Why this Royal doesn't need the Queen's permission to marry

Congrats are in order for Princess Beatrice, who has announced her engagement to property tycoon Edoardo Mapelli Mozzi.

The news was confirmed by Buckingham Palace today as Beatrice's sister Princess Eugenie shared Instagram pictures of the happy couple.

Unlike William and Harry, Beatrice would not have needed the Queen's permission to marry.

Ahead of Prince Harry and Meghan Markle’s wedding in 2018, you might remember the couple had to secure the Queen’s permission to tie the knot. (The Duke of Sussex’s father Prince Charles and brother Prince William had to do the same.)

However, Harry's cousin Princess Beatrice is free to marry whoever she wants without ringing her grandmother first.

A law called the Succession to the Crown Act details the line of succession and rules of royal marriages. In a part of the law called the “Consent of Sovereign required to certain Royal Marriages”, it is decreed that only the first six people in line to the throne need to get their intended wife or husband approved by Queen Elizabeth before tying the knot.

It reads, “A person who (when the person marries) is one of the 6 persons next in the line of succession to the Crown must obtain the consent of Her Majesty before marrying.”

Given Princess Beatrice is ninth in line to the throne, she is free to marry whoever she wants.

Her sister, Princess Beatrice, was also free to marry her husband Jack Brooksbank without the Queen’s permission as she is currently tenth in line to the throne.

The only people who need Queen Elizabeth’s sign off are the people closest to the crown, which includes the six people directly in line to the throne - including all of Prince William and Kate Middleton’s children.

British Line of Succession

1. Prince Charles, the Prince of Wales

2. Prince William, the Duke of Cambridge

3. Prince George of Cambridge

4. Princess Charlotte of Cambridge

5. Prince Louis of Cambridge

6. Prince Harry, the Duke of Sussex

Prince Harry and Meghan's son Archie Mountbatten-Windsor is in seventh place, he will be exempted from having to ask the reigning monarch for permission to marry too.

After the Queen has given her consent for her relatives to marry, the technicalities don’t stop there as she has to issue a formal statement “signified under the Great Seal of the United Kingdom”, declare it again “in Council” and have the declaration “recorded in the books of the Privy Council”.

The last couple to jump through these hoops and hurdles were Prince Harry and Meghan Markle and the Queen’s statement was a heartfelt one.

In the official declaration, she called Prince Harry her “Most Dearly Beloved Grandson” - an unexpected show of emotion in an otherwise formal document.

If they flout the rules, the first six in line to the throne could see themselves “disqualified from succeeding to the Crown”.